Customer Reviews

The Hunger Scream

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I have read this partuclar book from open to close. At first when I started to read the book I though that it was going to be very thought provoking and would lead me into great detail about certain feelings and situations. Unfortunately, this bok is not that emotional. The author writes as though she wants this book to be emotionally drawn butits not detailed enough to captavate the readers or the audiences sensitive side. This book doesnt seem to answer the question of why in full detail. I feel that the author is trying to make this book out to be more tht what was put into it. When I started to read the book I wanted to know what was going to happen next, but as I went on I lost all interest. This book lacks the motivational need to capture the reader's attention and focus through the novel and not just at certain parts. I feel however that with a little more effort and research on anorexia this book could be capable of winning attention.

Have you ever felt self conscious about your self image? Imagine that all around people harass you about how you look; you are too fat or too thin. They look at you strange as you walk down the street. When you look in the mirror you don't see yourself the way that others see you. Well, in The Hunger Scream. Lily Jamison doesn't care what people think about her image.
Lily Jamison thinks that she is fat and disgusting. Lily takes after her mother and decides to go on a diet. When she takes the diet too seriously to the point of starving herself her parents know that they need to do something before she starves herself to death! They decide that the best thing to do is to get her to see a physiatrist. She said that the reason for her not eating is because she wants to stay thin for the cheerleading tryouts. She keeps losing weight at a rapid pace so she needs medical help. She gets put in a hospital while she still receives psychiatric treatment. I can't go on without giving the ending away so I am going to leave it up to you to find the book and read it to find out what happens.
My recommendation for this book would be for middle schoolers. People might get the wrong idea, but the consequences are worse and you will not only enjoy reading the book but you will learn about Anorexia Nervosa.
Written by:
Katlyn

One of the earliest novels to tackle anorexia, Ruckman introduces the disorder as "normal" behavior that has-once again-simply gone too far. Lily is a smart, middleclass Little Miss Perfect cheerleader from a typical American family. But as Lily grows up, her changing relationship to her parents becomes increasingly perplexing. Lily's father is emotionally distant and her mother lives by the anorexic logic of dieting, and Lily likewise perceives her own emerging womanhood as the source of all problems. For Lily, puberty is marked by both a growing need for physical intimacy and a growing fear of affection and sexuality: Lily craves independence, but also wants to be Daddy's little girl; Lily diets and exercises in order to catch the eye of a boy, but dating distresses her. Lily's anorexia thus emerges as a modern conflict of gender roles, as Lily uses dieting and binging to strike a balance between traditional and contemporary models of femininity.
Unfortunately, Ruckman fails to find a sufficient balance. Although the novel does raise issues of therapy and intervention, it nevertheless presents anorexia as an individual problem rather than a cultural phenomenon that has inspired the individual's problem. A story about the teen body is thus reduced to a story about teen romance. By failing to make the connection between the individual and the culture, The Hunger Scream exhibits the efficacies of anorexia alongside the dangers and thereby fails to completely vocalize its anti-anorexia message.

This energetic book is a sure win! I enjoyed the experience and I recommended it to all of my friends!